


The Magic School Bus Has A Reunion

by Marqueurs



Category: Magic School Bus
Genre: Dorothy Ann is aromantic and asexual, F/F, F/M, Gen, Keesha is nonbinary but uses she pronouns, M/M, Ralphie is married to someone we don't know, but hopefully new fans to the show and its upcoming reboot will like it too, everyone's all grown up, this is for everyone who grew up on magic school bus
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-16
Updated: 2017-10-27
Packaged: 2018-12-30 07:28:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12103731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marqueurs/pseuds/Marqueurs
Summary: Miss Frizzle's old students are in their late twenties and all reaching a difficult crossroads in their lives. A well-timed high school reunion brings them together again, but Miss Frizzle is absent. Fortunately, one person knows where she is - and he has the keys to the Magic School Bus.





	1. The Reunion

The ten year high school reunion. Honestly, Wanda almost skipped it. She had nothing to brag about after ten years. She wrote scripts for D-quality television and cartoon shows. Nothing anyone’s ever seen. If they have, she wouldn’t want them to know she wrote that garbage.

Tim convinced her to come to the reunion. He worked at the same studio as her as an animator, and they were about to pitch an idea to the heads: a cartoon based off their experiences in elementary school. An educational program featuring a magic school bus would surely be a hit. Tim and Wanda both needed a hit, or they would be stuck on the middle of the creative corporate ladder forever.

No one had to know their adventures were drawn from real life. But their classmates from those golden days would know. So would a certain red-headed teacher. They needed approval from those people.

They had only approached one classmate about their concept – Tim’s husband, Carlos. Whoever saw that coming? An artist and a clown, soulmates. Said clown had become a mechanic and was currently working on getting his masters in engineering.

The ham loved the show idea, of course. Tim wanted to use the reunion as a chance to get the approval from their other elementary school classmates. Wanda could pitch ideas better than the stoic Picasso, so she had to tag along with Carlos and Tim as her dates.

Yep. No significant others to brag about. Online dating had been fruitless. No one worth seeing at work more than she needed to. Except Tim, of course.

Everyone at the venue looked so happy. The class had rented a country club so booze could flow freely. Glittery streamers dangled across the ceiling, music from a decade ago bounced off the walls, people Wanda knew as awkward teenagers had turned into smiling adults.

Wanda downed half of her first beer in two seconds. Tim sipped on his, clutching his portfolio close to him. They had lost Carlos.

Not for long.

“I’ve found the others! They’re all here!”

Carlos grabbed Wanda’s hand and dragged her through the crowd of dancing peers. It was weird to brush by people she once considered friends who barely looked at her now. It was weirder that Carlos didn’t take Tim’s hand. The two were usually inseparable.

Wanda recognized each person at the table who greeted the newcomers excitedly. Even without keeping tabs on them on Facebook, she would have known them.

The beautiful blonde with her hair pulled back into a long ponytail was Dorothy Ann, a doctor of some sort. The brunette with cat hair all over her black dress was Phoebe, an animal shelter worker. The only guy classy enough to wear a baseball cap with his suit was Ralphie, whose occupation was a mystery to Wanda. Keesha stood out with her gorgeous afro and toned arms, a dancer seeking to make it big on Broadway.

And then there was Arnold, the only person who didn’t have any kind of social media account. The ginger had, well, grown up quite a bit. Still wore glasses, but his grin sparkled with a sort of confidence he never had as a kid. He had discarded the yellow stripes of old and come to the reunion in a brown suit and a tie covered in snowmen.

Odd choice for a spring affair.

He was also the only person without an alcoholic beverage in front of him.

“My goodness, Wanda, I don’t think you’ve aged a day,” Dorothy Ann gushed. “I thought your profile pictures were Photoshopped all this time.”

“Hah hah. Thanks.” She rubbed the back of her head and took a seat next to Tim.

“Carlos says you two want to make a show about Miss Frizzle and the magic school bus,” Ralphie said. Wanda observed the ring on his left hand. Right, Ralphie had been married for a few years now to some girl he met in college before dropping out. He never talked about his family on Facebook. Just posted memes.

“That’s so cool!” Keesha leaned forward. “Did you bring any drawings?”

Tim glared at Carlos briefly and then opened his portfolio. “Yes, I did.”

The table passed the sketches of Miss Frizzle and the bus and each of them around while Wanda explained everything. Carlos and Wanda felt the show would be best if each of them with their unique personalities and backgrounds were represented, but they could change names or personal details as needed.

All of their old classmates’ faces beamed with glee. Maybe the alcohol helped, but Wanda felt like she had really sold the story to them with Tim’s wonderful pictures. Even Arnold nodded his head along enthusiastically, and she had expected trouble from him. She wanted to bottle this feeling and take it with her when she had to pitch the show to the executives.

“Oh, this is marvelous,” Phoebe sighed. “Too many educational programs on television today lack the fun this show could have. Believe me. I have to watch this all the time.”

Wanda forgot Phoebe had a child. Some asshole had knocked her up and left her. How old would that kid be now? Five? Six?

It was just like Phoebe to be a single mom. She had too much love in her heart and could never turn away a stray animal. She certainly would never abandon her own flesh and blood.

Keesha rested a hand on Phoebe’s arm, and Phoebe took a drink nervously. “You think this show could have fun?”

“It would be funny for sure,” Ralphie added. “Especially with our favorite lizard.”

“And it’d be punny,” Carlos said pointedly. “Get it?”

“Carlos,” said…everyone.

A laugh broke through the group. Even Tim had a nice chuckle. Affection flickered across his face when he looked at Carlos. Then the frown returned.

“If only Miss Frizzle was here.” Wanda finished her beer. She debated going for another one. The buzz was quite pleasant. The reunion was going better than she thought it would.

“Does anyone know how she is?” Dorothy Ann asked. “I called our elementary school, and she doesn’t work there anymore. I also Googled her before coming here, but I didn’t find anything. According to my research, she’s basically dropped off the face of the Earth.”

“Knowing Miss Frizzle, she actually could be out in space,” Keesha said.

“It would be nice to go back there, wouldn’t it?” Wanda asked, letting a sliver of her old adventurous side shine through.  “Jump around on the moon. Dance through the stars.”

Arnold smiled at her, very sincerely, and a flare of embarrassment washed over her cheeks.

“I’d love to get baked again,” Carlos snickered. “Even half-baked.”

Tim rolled his eyes. “It’d be a lot of fun to shrink and see something from a new view. Remember how we thought sugar crystals were diamonds?”

“Think of all the animals we could actually help as adults now,” Phoebe said with a sigh. “The shelter is wonderful, but I think I could do more if I had more time. We always had plenty of time with Miss Frizzle.”

“That’s because Miss Frizzle is a Time Lord.” Ralphie tapped his head. “Think about it.”

“A Time Lord? What’s that?” Dorothy Ann frowned and pulled out her phone. Ralphie grabbed her wrist.

“Don’t bother, D.A.,” he said. “It’s a Doctor Who thing.”

“Oh. I miss doing research the old fashioned way sometimes.” Dorothy Ann smoothed a wrinkle on her purple dress. “Technology is wonderful because I can look up something any time I want, which is helpful for patients with rare conditions, but I miss actually looking at a virus up close.”

“I do lots of field research, but it’s…” Ralphie shrugged his shoulders. “It’s not exciting. Not like seeing sound and knowing it’s real instead of just speculating.”

“What do you do?” Keesha asked sheepishly. Wanda was glad she wasn’t the only one who didn’t know.

Ralphie grinned. “I run a podcast over everything paranormal. Ghosts, vampires, zombies, lizard people.”

That was a very Ralphie job, and Wanda wasn’t sure why she expected something different.

“Tim draws, Wanda writes, Ralphie looks for aliens, I look very sexy while fixing cars, D.A. cures people, Phoebe rescues animals, Keesha dances…” Carlos held his drink out to Arnold. “What do you do, Arnold? Lawyer?”

The ginger grinned. “I’m an elementary school teacher. At our old school.”

“No kidding!” Wanda clasped her hands together. “Do you know where Miss Frizzle is, by any chance?”

“Actually, I do. She left a few years ago. Right when I started.” Arnold moved his soda to the side.

“Could you give us her contact information?” Wanda asked. “That’d really help a lot.”

“Yes, we can’t do this show without her approval,” Tim added.

This time, Carlos shot Tim a look that bordered on distasteful.

Arnold’s grin widened. He leaned forward, prompting the rest of the table to lean in as well. A Jackson’s Chameleon snaked up his back and perched itself on his shoulder, and his snowman tie started to glow.

“Do you want to go on a field trip?”


	2. The Bus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arnold shows an old friend off to the classmates, and they all decide the reunion wouldn't be complete without visiting their old teacher, no matter how far away she is.

Arnold had never dreamed he would become a teacher, much less a magical field trip enthusiast. He had really liked the normal sort of education he received through middle and high school. No shrinking, no dangerous animals, no colds from Pluto.

When he went to college, he enrolled in pre-law. On his second day of classes, he realized he could do a lot more good for the world if he provided a safe, stimulating environment for children. So he switched to teaching.

It wouldn’t be hard to emulate some of his most unforgettable teacher’s lessons. Give the kids some direction but let them decide what they learned and how they engaged with the subject matter. Nurture the best qualities they had. Make them believe they could be better than some of the people who grew up to be criminals.

While student teaching, he realized his dreams had a huge antagonist – standardized testing and budget cuts. Even kindergartners were subjected to the dauntless task of filling in bubbles and hoping they were good enough. No public school curriculum would allow for students to have time to care about anything except grades. Their youths were wasted on numbers designed to improve school budgets.

So he went to Miss Frizzle and asked her how he could balance what his job would demand and what children actually needed. They went on a field trip. Multiple ones. So many, he couldn’t count them all by the time he graduated.

Something had changed inside him by the time he got a job offer. A strange sort of magic welled through him. Possibilities were everywhere.

“As I always say, if you can’t have fun at your job, have your job be fun,” Miss Frizzle had said before handing him the keys to Bus.

He actually understood it. By having fun with the students and doing what she always did, they would find a way to pass those standardized tests with flying colors. A little magic didn’t hurt either.

Seeing his old classmates’ faces when he took them out to see The Bus in the parking lot was beyond priceless. Especially Wanda’s. Her bright eyes were more beautiful than the stars above them.

Yeah, okay. He had nursed a crush on all of his female classmates at some point, but there was always something about Wanda that stuck with him. Literally, sometimes. He couldn’t chew gum without thinking about her.

“You’re the new Miss Frizzle?” Carlos gushed. “Unbelievable. I must have had more to drink than I thought I did.”

“It’s real, it’s real!” Phoebe ran her hand along the length of Bus.

Bus beeped happily.

“You drive this?” Keesha raised an eyebrow. “Mr. ‘I Knew I Should Have Stayed Home Today’?”

Arnold laughed. His pet, Dizzy, ran down his arm and jumped inside Bus. She was ready to visit her cousin Liz.

“I drive this,” he said.

“If you have Bus, how does Miss Frizzle get around?” Tim asked. Pensive as always. Arnold had always appreciated Tim’s down-to-earth qualities.

“Where Miss Frizzle is, she doesn’t need to travel much,” Arnold replied. “She’s very self-sustained.”

“So where is she?” Keesha asked.

“Can we really see her tonight?” Wanda asked. “The sooner, the better.”

Arnold held up his tie. “She's in Antarctica.”

“Antarctica?” Dorothy Ann pulled out her phone and tapped away at the screen. “According to my research, it’s currently negative 58 degrees there.”

“That’s cold,” Carlos said. “What is she doing there?”

“She’s a sashimi chef for penguins.” Arnold said, opening the storage of the school bus. Snowsuits and skis were waiting for the class. Enough for everybody and perfectly tailored to their size. Arnold still didn’t understand how this part worked, but Bus always knew. “You didn’t think we’d go unprepared, did you?”

“I haven’t been on a trip of any kind in forever,” Phoebe said. “Even at my old job, before I started working in the shelter, we never went on business trips.”

“What were you before?” Arnold asked.

“A sales rep.” Phoebe frowned, resting her hands on her stomach. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore than that.”

A pang of ache went through Arnold’s chest. He had just found out Phoebe was a single mom about two seconds before reuniting with her tonight. She must have met her child’s father at her old job.

Single moms were the norm in Arnold’s classroom. They were all wonderful, even if some of them showed up while they were having bad days. No one could be expected to have a good day every day. That’s why Arnold was there – to make everyone’s day better. Make them realize how important they are to the world.

That’s why he was here too. It would have been easy to skip this reunion. Almost preferable, really, as he had a big unit on weather to plan. Should they go to Seattle to study rain? California for the sun? Make their own weather changes in the school’s playground with the help of a little magic?

But on the day he received his invitation to the reunion, he had been watching a kids’ show. It had a horrible premise – genius babies doing their parents’ jobs for them while they slept. Low quality animation, lack of vision for education.

Arnold caught Wanda’s name in the credits just as he went to delete his invitation, and he remembered how much he loved listening to her stories and ideas in school. They were radiant and riveting. The genius babies show runners weren’t utilizing her skills properly. Was she content with this job? Did she know how important she was to his world, even to this day? What about the rest of their old classmates?

Seeing that credit was no coincidence. It was bashert, destiny.

He came to the reunion with a single purpose – to remind everyone he had grown up with how important they were.

“Are we really going to Antarctica?” Ralphie asked. “What if we find the entrance to Hollow Earth there?”

“Hollow Earth?” Dorothy Ann asked, pulling out her phone.

“Where the Reptilians come from!”

Keesha smacked Ralphie’s arm lightly. “No conspiracy theories on this trip.”

“But we could find out all the secrets of the universe now. I’m just saying.”

“Let’s go now,” Tim said, climbing into the bus before everyone else.

Carlos gaped at him.

“I agree with Tim! The sooner we leave, the better!” Phoebe gave Dizzy a pet on the head before she boarded.

Keesha followed her immediately, an amused smile on her face.

Arnold slid into the driver’s seat and watched the others board. Phoebe and Keesha sat together, as did Ralphie and Dorothy Ann. Curiously, Carlos sat by himself in the back while Wanda and Tim sat together up front.

Arnold had seen his fair share of quarreling couples. Whatever was going on between Carlos and Tim wasn’t a mere argument. There was no heated tension between them – it was cool, unsettling.

Could he help them?

He looked up at the mirror and winked at his classmates’ reflection.

“Seatbelts!”

Keesha was more than eager to help Phoebe with hers. Oh, that lovely dancer had it bad for the animal lover. Phoebe blushed when their fingers brushed against each other, suggesting she wasn’t against the idea of something happening. Was there anything Arnold could do to make their night more romantic?

Ralphie and Dorothy Ann had both been quiet most of the evening. Ralphie was married, and Dorothy Ann was single, but both of them had been reticent to share that information with Arnold when he asked. Almost frightened, even.

They had secrets looming through them, pains Arnold wondered if he could erase, if only temporarily.

If he couldn’t do it, Miss Frizzle could. There was nothing she couldn’t do.

He had to believe that with his whole heart. Every time he experienced a problem, he tried to remember how Miss Frizzle would approach it. Treat those problems as an opportunity to grow, to learn.

Arnold’s belief in Miss Frizzle carried him through all of his dark moments. Sometimes she expressed concern for him not being enough of his own teacher, but he didn’t understand that. He was taking lessons from the best and retooling them for a modern classroom – how was that not enough of being his own teacher?

“All right, Bus,” he said. “Do your stuff!”

A light surrounded Bus as it flew up into the sky, transforming it into jet plane with a fluffy parka wrapped around it.

The gang erupted into glee, warming Arnold’s heart.

They were all so, so important to him.


End file.
